


Don't Get Stung

by Nitrobot



Series: Bug Bites [1]
Category: Transformers (Bay Movies), Transformers: Robots in Disguise (2015)
Genre: Alcoholic Robot, F/M, Unrequited Crush
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-10
Updated: 2016-06-29
Packaged: 2018-05-21 06:31:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 9,446
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6041718
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nitrobot/pseuds/Nitrobot
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>As well as trying to track down a literal shapeshifting Decepticon femme with serious attachment issues, the Autobots also have to babysit the most obnoxious mech to ever hit Earth since Smokescreen.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I've had the idea for AOE Stinger (who I always saw as a femme because reasons) showing up in RID for a while, but I only managed to do something with it when I figured I could shoehorn in one of my recent OCs, Circuitsplitter (cause let's face it, Sideswipe really needs a wingmech if he's ever gonna get Strongarm as his girlfriend). I know 90% of fics with OCs either end up being crap, either because of the plot or the character themselves, but don't worry; pretty much no one is gonna put up with CS's slag, and he's mostly just comic relief aside of the main plot of the fic.

"Soooo, whaddaya think?" Denny asked with a smile far too big for his face plastered on. 

Bumblebee scratched at his helm as it tilted to one side, trying to figure out the source of the human's joy. "Uh... what is it, exactly?" he asked.

The confusion did little to sway Denny's smile. "A 1977 Chevrolet Camaro!" he announced, dramatically throwing his arms out in gesture towards the dusty car in front of him. "A little newer than what I usually get, sure, but it was a bargain. Tell you what, give it a lick of yellow paint and some stripes and you'll have your own Autobot twin, Bee!"

The Autobot leader still frowned, kneeling just above the ground and squinting at the existing paint under the thin coat of grime. "It's pink," he said.

Denny's grin dropped several inches. "No it isn't, it's red!" he protested.

Bumblebee wiped off a line of dust off the door with a digit, revealing the bright metal beneath. "It's quite clearly pink, Denny."

The human stamped in front of Bumblebee, peering at the sharp contrast of clean to dirty metal with an even deeper frown. "In that case, you better tell Sideswipe that he's been driving around with a princess paintjob cause this is _very obviously_ red," he insisted, pointing with emphasis at the chassis. Both bot and man might have spent the whole morning debating if not for Russell's arrival.

"Hey Dad, what's with the pink car?" he asked, leaping into the ragged driver's seat.

Now faced with no choice but to admit defeat, Denny glowered up at Bumblebee while the Autobot tried to not look too smug. "You win this round, Bee."

Bumblebee didn't have much time to gloat though, as Fixit came trundling up to him while Russell pretended he was in the middle of a high speed police chase.

"Um, Bumblebee, sir? Can I leek- _zzz_ -peek- _zzz-SPEAK_ with you for a klick?" 

"Sure, Fixit. What's up?" Bumblebee kept his pace slow so as not to overtake the Minicon while he was led to the Alchemor's broken front hull.

'I've been going through the Alchemor manifesto one more time, and one of the prisoner profiles has got me worried..." So worried, it seemed, that Fixit couldn't even concentrate on avoiding rocks on the ground as his wheels bumped uncomfortably over them.

"How come?" Bumblebee asked, with an eyeridge quirked when Fixit almost fell flat on his faceplate. The Minicon regained his balance when he drove up the smooth metal of the ramp to the command console, tapping the keyboard and sifting through the database. Eventually he paused with a triumphant "Aha!", and his screen was projected out so Bumblebee could see.

"This one right here, sir. 'Stinger'. She's classed as a subspecies of an Omnishifter."

Bumblebee's eyeridges only got higher the more he squinted at the detailed profile beamed out in front of him, and the silhouette that substituted her mugshot. "A what?"

"A bot that can scan other primary modes as well as alt modes, thought to be descendants of Amalgamous Prime," Fixit explained. "I heard you had one on Earth once, Makeshift?"

"Ohhh, yeah, I remember him..." Bumblebee grimaced, remembering how they might have gone decacycles without knowing they had a Con among them if not for the real Wheeljack's arrival. Fixit mirrored his grim expression as he tracked further down Stinger's profile.

"And according this, Stinger is even _more_ dangerous than a normal Shifter..." he said, leaning into the console as if double checking what he was reading. "Not only can she scan any mode barring a Seeker one, she can reduce herself to... some kind of fluid metal compound. From what I can tell it was part of some kind of Decepticon experiment during the war, to try and make a completely all-purpose soldier." 

"Must have not had much success, if this Stinger is the only one we know of," Bumblebee said while wondering just how many half-processed Decepticon scientist nightmares were still out in the universe. 

"Pretty much," Fixit confirmed, bringing up something else on his screen. "There's only been three recorded survivors of the experiments, and it says here Shockrave- _zzz_ -pave- _zzz_ -wave himself was in charge of them."

With his mouth in a hard line, as it usually was when 'responsible leader' mode kicked in, Bumblebee looked over to another shattered part of the Alchemor's side. "So she got out with the rest of the prisoners?"

"Er, that's the thing..." Fixit descended from the console with servos tangled nervously behind his back. "All the times she's attacked Autobot outposts in the past, she's infiltrated them by disguising herself. She's been everything from an empty energon cube to... something as small as a socket wrench."

Bumblebee tried to imagine even the tiniest Minicon managing a feat like that, and failed. "So you think she could be hiding around here somewhere?"

Fixit shrugged, though his shoulder plates shook together. "It's possible."

"Hmm... well, if she is around here, she hasn't shown up yet. We should focus on getting the Cons that we know for sure are out there, but in the meantime I'll have everyone keep a lookout for anything odd."

As Fixit nodded with a formal salute, Sideswipe returned from his perimeter patrol with Strongarm. "Yo, Denny, I didn't know pink was your colour," he said so innocently.

"IT'S _RED_ , I TELL YA! You should know, you see it in the mirror every day!" was Denny's inevitable response.

"Uh, Bee, I think I broke one of the humans," Sides called out while Denny pushed the controversial car away from judgmental optics with Russell following him.

"Wouldn't be the first time you broke something, Sides," Strongarm huffed with crossed servos, drawing a squinting glare from the red mech.

"Hey, I said I was sorry for sitting on your rifle, alright? Your fault for leaving it lying around for an aft to wreck, anyway!" Sideswipe pouted, copying her pose with servos over his chest. Bumblebee groaned and made to intervene like usual, but once again it was Fixit who distracted with something more important.

"Incoming ship!" he cried, just as the console's proximity alerts started going off.

"Bot or Con?" Bumblebee asked, as the rest of the Autobots gathered around him. Even Grimlock woke from his midday nap and emerged under an immense pile of scrap to see what the fuss was about.

"Uh... neither," Fixit answered. "It's registered as a neutral."

"What's a neutral doing on Earth?" Strongarm asked, optics squinting under furrowed ridges.

"Maybe we're just popular!" Sideswipe suggested, just as the ship in question shimmered into view through the clouds overhead.

"Everyone, arm yourselves," Bumblebee ordered, letting his battlemask slide over his mouth. "And Grimlock, you just... look scary."

"Got it, boss!" The Dinobot transformed and split his maw open wide, bearing several rows of razor denta as if he could bite the ship out of the sky. 

From what Bumblebee could tell it was a dorm model starship; a mobile home to bots travelling alone. Apart from superficial stripes and crude graffiti, there were no recognisable markings or symbols on the hull. It might have been a lost neutral like Fixit said, or it might have been hijacked by a Decepticon...

In either case, Bumblebee had his gun aimed steady while it tried to land amidst a sea of junk. It eventually cleared a space with its descending thrusters blowing most metal out of the way. 

The boarding ramp lowered, and what came out was music much louder than the usual audio should have been able to tolerate, and which practically shook everything in the scrapyard. While the Autobots all clenched their denta and tried to tune their audios out of the thumping noise, the ship's pilot finally showed himself by shooting down the ramp and trying to sing- at least, that's what Bumblebee figured his tone deaf warbling must have been.

"Party don't start 'til I walk in, and I'm knockin' back shots with a ten outta ten-!" To the relief of everyone's receptors the mech paused in the middle of a dance move, staring at all the guns (and in Grimlock's case, drool-stained teeth) aimed at him from behind black glass panels over both his optics, and with a very quickly retreating grin. One of the panels lifted up with a whir, showing a wide blue pit of confusion scanning over the Autobots.

"Uh, I was told of a, quote, "Banging aft party" round here, so just point where the free high-grade is and I'll be on my way," he said, trying to recover his smirk as his hazy optic hid itself again. 

Both Sideswipe and Strongarm looked to Bumblebee for some idea of what to do, though even their leader was at a loss. He just nodded towards Strongarm, trusting her to make sense of what was going on.

"Hands behind your helm, sir," she ordered with a silent nod to Sideswipe, and the mech gave a dramatic groan as his shoulders fell.

"Ah, scrap, not this again. Listen, I gotta friend in the IPD, I asked him if turbo boosters were legal outside Cybertron and he told me yes, so you blame _him_ if you find any!" Despite his protest, he didn't struggle much when Sideswipe approached and pulled his servos behind his back, cuffing them together. "Not, uh, not that there _is_ any to find, that I know of..." The strange hood-like fabric around his helm slipped forward and hid half his faceplate as Sideswipe pressed him down against a shelf of scrap.

"State your designation," Strongarm said, lowering her weapon only when she was sure Sideswipe secured the cuffs. His helm lazily swung back up, though she couldn't tell if his covered optics were even meeting hers.

"Circuitshi-" He burst into giggles, almost hiccuping through his vents. "Sorry, sorry, happens a lot- uhh, Circuitsplitter, ma'am."

Now Strongarm must have been close enough to smell his mouth, and her olfactories crinkled in offense. "Are you _drunk_?" 

"I was like that when I got here, officer, I swear," Circuitsplitter insisted, practically a limp ragdoll in Sideswipe's grip.

"I can believe that..." the red mech grimaced. Both he and Strongarm again looked to Bumblebee, who stood just out of reach of the high-grade drenched air around their captive. Grimlock mostly growled to himself, taking one whiff of the air and almost gagging.

"Strongarm, get him somewhere we can keep an optic on him," he decided. "We'll question him when he sobers up." Strongarm nodded, though she looked less than enthusiastic about having to handle the drunk.

"Woaaah, you got big hands, baby..." Circuitsplitter laughed as Strongarm roughly hauled him up.

"And an even bigger ped to shove up your aft," she said curtly, dragging him away.

"Hey, police brutality!" he cried out in a slurred mumble. "Soon as I get out, imma sue y'all into next stellar cycle!"

"I doubt he could even spell lawyer, let alone afford one," Sideswipe muttered to himself, still cringing from the lingering bar stench.

"As for you, Sides, you can search his ship for us," Bumblebee said, if only to get some amusement out of the mech's long whine of, "Awww, do I have to?"

"Either that or you can clean up when he inevitably purges-"

A distant disgusted "Ewwww!" from Strongarm interrupted him.

"Too late."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I didn't really want to have a massive paragraph describing Circuit's appearance, but basically his colour scheme is mostly black and white with gold details  
>  ~~(I have done sketches of him before, but they're terrible and I'd rather no one ever see them ever...)~~
> 
> And I know Stinger was a Pagani Huayra in AOE, but I felt like giving her the same alt mode as Bumblebee here.


	2. Chapter 2

"Bee, I dunno how you guys do manners on Cybertron, but down here it's considered kinda rude to just leave spaceships lying around," Denny informed with another nervous glance at all the junk Circuitsplitter's landing had blown aside.

"Apologies, we had an... unexpected arrival," Bumblebee coughed, holding back a slew of other names he had for their obnoxious prisoner. "We'll get it moved as soon as Sideswipe is done searching it." He banged on the hull of the ship while looking up at the captain's pod. "How it's going up there, Sides?"

"OH PRIMUS, IT'S DISGUSTING!" Sideswipe yelled.

"Good work, keep it up!" he called, now turning his attention over to Fixit back at the Alchemor's console. "How about you, Fixit?"

"We're in puck- _zzz_ -fffffff- _zzz-schree-_ " The Minicon's vocaliser had a much more obvious glitch out than usual for some reason. "Luck!" he eventually managed to get out. "Circuitsplitter was once imprisoned onboard a few stellar cycles ago. His profile won't be up to date, but it should give us some idea of what he's up to."

Bumblebee nodded. "Good enough. What's his criminal history?"

"Let's see... possession of outlawed high-grade, stimulants, several counts of soliciting from a pleasure hive planet, disturbing the peace, DUIs, PUIs-"

"PUIs?"

"Piloting Under the Influence," Fixit explained. "In short, his history looks like the basic requirements for joining the Wreckers."

Sideswipe meanwhile continued to groan in the background. "Ughh, I thought _my_ berthroom was bad... hey, Playmech issue 35! I thought they were all lost in the war!"

"I wouldn't touch it if I were you, Sides-"

Bumblebee's warning came a nanoklick too late. "EWWWWWWWWWWWW!"

"Well, he can't say I didn't tell him," Bee shrugged as Sideswipe came running down the ramp, whimpering and shaking his hands as if trying to get acid off of them. "So, anything to report?" Bee asked, waiting for the red mech to recover from his traumatic experience. 

"A complete loss of my innocence and faith in mechkind," Sides answered with a thousand lightyear stare.

"Other than that," Bee said.

Sideswipe shook himself to recover, though he still had a grimace that refused to budge. "Well, honestly, there were so many illegal things that I lost count after the second room. But nothing dangerous. Now if we're done, Bee, I'd like a very very long shower."

Bumblebee was about to dismiss him when Strongarm returned from what he assumed was five klicks spent tying their prisoner to a pole and enduring several jokes about BDSM. "No way, Sides, I deserve one more," she insisted, scraping her peds stubbornly on the dirt with every step.

Sideswipe scowled. "Hey, I called it first!" 

"But _you_ don't have to walk around with energon vomit all over your peds!" Strongarm pointed out.

"Both of you, calm down!" Bumblebee ordered, literally stepping between them. "Strongarm, you're still in charge of watching Circuitsplitter so just wash it off with the hose. You can have a proper solvent wash when Sideswipe is finished." Bee didn't see the red mech sticking his glossa out smugly behind him, but Strongarm's scandalised expression made it obvious.

"Just what we need, _another_ sparkling to babysit around here..." Strongarm grumbled as Sideswipe sauntered away, still glaring after him and only turning back to Bumblebee when he turned out of side. "So what are we gonna do with our... prisoner when his systems clean out?"

"Well, he's still a drunk driving hooligan, so I don't want to just send him off to some other civilian planet," Bumblebee mused. "But we can't afford sparing anyone to escort him back to Cybertron... it might be we just need to keep him here for the time being."

Strongarm's intakes hissed and her door wings flipped up at the prospect. "Bumblebee, sir, with all due respect..." She lowered her voice as if it would end up waking Circuitsplitter up from several yards away. "I am _not_ having that degenerate anywhere near Russell. Sideswipe is a bad enough influence as it is."

"I agree, Strongarm, on _both_ accounts, but we can't really do anything else with him," Bee pointed out. "We need all the stasis pods for the actually dangerous Decepticons, after all."

Strongarm's flared door wings lowered, but she still frowned. "Right..."

Bumblebee shared her trepidation, but at least he saw a chance to steer towards more urgent matters. "Speaking of which, I need you and the others to report anything weird you notice going on in the scrapyard. We've got a Decepticon who might be hiding as a... piece of junk, or something."

Strongarm was just as confused as he was the first time. "What? How?"

"Fixit has all the details, but you just need to stay vigilant. We don't even know if she's around here, but better safe than sorry." Strongarm nodded, and the return to normal 'Con hunting protocol seemed to stabilise her- at least until Grimlock came nervously stamping up, still in his beast mode.

"Uh, Strongarm? Is it normal for prisoners to be snorin' and droolin' over everything?" he asked, earning some wearily rolled optics from the femme.

"When they smell like they've been dunked in a fermentation tank, then yes, Grimlock," she answered, reluctantly returning to 'drunk tank watch' duty with the Dinobot behind her. And just when Bumblebee thought he'd finally have a break, Denny ended up replacing her scowling presence less than a klick later.

"Alright, Bee, very funny, I get you don't like the car, but there's no need to be throwing it over to the other side of the yard, alright?" he said, hands on hips as if making himself wider could compensate for how tiny the rest of him was. 

Though Bee took it as a threat display, he only showed confusion. "I didn't... are you saying the car moved by itself?"

"No, I'm sayin' _you_ moved it just to mess with me!" the human insisted, though doubt made his accusing frown fade while something suspicious overtook Bee's expression. 

"Where is it now?" the Autobot asked. 

Denny scratched his chin and threw a thumb over his shoulder. "Behind the old vending machines..." Bumblebee was already halfway there by the time he managed to catch up, doubling over from exertion and only noticing the empty patch of dirt when he managed to stop gulping air down. 

"What the...? I swear it was there a minute ago!" Denny snapped upright, blinking as if something in his eyes was blocking the view of what he should have been seeing.

Bumblebee noted the faint tire tracks pressed into the dirt, and pieced together an explanation even Optimus might have been proud of. "I think I know what's going on... Denny, go find Russell and get yourselves somewhere safe. There might be a Decepticon hiding nearby."

Denny blinked again at the weapon that materialised in Bee's hand, but was thankfully inching away from the scene. "Uh... sure." This time he didn't run so energetically, but he was out of sight quick enough for Bee to start examining the far side of the yard more closely. Of all the forms for Stinger to take, she chose a very conspicuous car when she could have easily passed as a bolt or screw... maybe she didn't like being cramped. Or maybe she was planning to reveal herself. 

Whatever her reasoning, Bumblebee knew he wouldn't be able to guess it. After all, who knew what being under Shockwave's scalpel would do to someone's processor? He aimed at every piece of scrap that jutted out just a little too much, looked a little too shiny, or just looked at him funny, tense for the moment when she'd surely ambush him out of nowhere.

But he reached the end of the junk piles with hardly a scrape of metal to make him jump, and relief was starting to fill his spark when he caught a glint of pink (definitely not red) paint in the blinding noon sunlight. The 'Camaro' had reappeared just behind a wall of hollow metal cabinets, and Bumblebee ducked down behind them before it had a chance to vanish again.

"Fixit, come in! I think I've just found Sting-" He'd only just opened his comm channel when there was a scuff of wheels approaching, and the Minicon trundled to a sudden stop beside him. Unwittingly Bumblebee ended up copying Denny, blinking to make sure his optics were working. "...That was fast," he said, and Fixit just shrugged with an oddly blank face. Unfortunately, Bumblebee dismissed it in favour of turning attention back to Stinger, only to have a blip in his comm unit distract him.

" _Sorry for the delay, sir, I had to fix the solvent nozzle for Sideswipe first... what did you say you found?_ " That was unmistakably Fixit's voice in his audio, though no sound came out of the Minicon to his left. 

"But... Fixit, you're right here next to-" Realisation hit Bumblebee just before the drill aimed for his neck managed to, and he flinched just in time to have it skid harmlessly against a metal panel at his back. He rolled sideways, mindless of the grit clogging his armour seams, and what he thought was Fixit was already dissolving into a cloud of shimmering cubes. When they reformed a few feet away, Bee only had a chance to catch a glint of pink and black plating before it smashed into him, sending his gun clattering at least five inches out of his reach. 

After slamming half into the ground and half into a stack of pallets, the only thing that stopped Bee's spinal strut from bending was the unyielding chestplates he pressed up against- highly inappropriate considering femmes, but it was the only place his hands could reach to stop her pinning him down. But even with his meager resistance, Stinger was practically digging his own grave for him from the force she pressed him down with. 

"I've been waiting for this, Bumblebee..." Her vocaliser was more like a hive of insects all chittering together at once, compound optics of green glass glittering in waves over him; too much like a predator weighing up its prey before biting into it.

Though his winglets were trapped beneath his back, Bee managed to twitch them enough that they gave him some leverage against her. "Don't worry... we kept your stasis pod warm for you!" With a hard jerk of his door wings, he lifted off the ground and jerked his ped into Stinger's abdomen, shoving against the fuzzy collection of molecules too fast for them to flinch away. He clambered back while Stinger was still reeling, sweeping optics for his gun and wrapping his digits around the grip just as a blade skidded against his wrist. The overcharged energon roaring in his audios made him ignore the pain in his protoform, but the new coating of fluid on his digits made anything slip out of them- including his weapon. And his bare servos were hardly matched against limbs that could melt away and reappear somewhere else in the space of a nanoklick; a fist aimed for his face when he tried to block a kick, and ducking one blow just made him the perfect target for another. The blows were dulled, much softer than they should have been, but they still left Bee dizzy trying to keep track of them. At some point Stinger just stopped pummeling altogether, instead snapping her servos around him and forcing him against her chest and the fluttering spark it contained. 

Rather than trying to dismember him, she was... hugging him. Very tightly.

"What the... get... get off of me!" Bumblebee wriggled and tried to pull away, but his struggles only made what little space he was allowed close in around him. 

"No, you'll just run away again!" Stinger protested, and if Bee was watching her he might have said she was... _nuzzling_ into him. 

Luckily Fixit was watching to make that observation for him, almost lurching forwards from how suddenly he paused at the fringe of the scene. "Uh... Bumblebee?" He twirled his drill hesitantly, as if he was intruding on something. Bee would have quipped something about him taking his damn time, but as it was he was lucky to still have a vocaliser to speak out of."

"Get...urk, Strongarm, or...a magnet, egh, or something!" he pleaded, now only able to flinch his helm away from Stinger's crushing embrace and her far too friendly faceplate, as well as the content hums rumbling from it.

Fixit nodded in a hurry, trundling backwards and still watching with a confused kind of fascination. Stinger didn't even notice he was there, completely focused on reducing Bee to a bundle of metal flakes. "Stop squirming, you'll scuff your paint!" she whined, though Bee would have gladly been subjected to a sandpaper massage if it meant being free from the thrumming heat starting to ebb against his chestplate.


	3. Chapter 3

When Strongarm finally came to the rescue, Grimlock in tow, she understandably had to take a few nanoklicks to understand what she was seeing. Grimlock had no such issue, batting his tail on the ground like an overexcited turbopuppy.

"Hey, Bee, you never told us you had a girlfriend!" he yelled across the space while Bee was starting to feel his fuel tanks compress from Stinger's vice-servos. 

"I... don't, Grimlock!" he insisted, and though Strongarm seemed to doubt it she at least had a blaster in her hands and aimed at Stinger's helm. 

"I'll say this once, ma'am, drop the Autobot and put your servos over your helm."

Even staring down a barrel, Stinger just wrenched her helm side to side in a stubborn refusal. "No!" The femme's servos were squeezing Bee's chestplates so tightly that he was almost lifted off the ground, legs flailing wildly and almost pulling himself into two halves. With how he must have looked, it was only through rigorous training still fresh in her processor that Strongarm wasn't spluttering with laughter. Instead she just strengthed her scowl and steadied her aim in preparation for recoil. 

"Last warning, let go of him or-" Whatever Strongarm was planning to do would never be known, as Grimlock decided to take matters into his own claws and smack Stinger aside with his tail. Both the femme and Bee went sprawling in the dirt, each of them colliding with a different pile of junk. Stinger was the first to recover, dissolving herself and reforming on the other side of the scrapyard, behind the safety of the fence. She glared at Grimlock while he kept wagging his tail and seemed to wait for Bee to regain his footing and shrug hubcaps off his shoulders, jabbing a claw in his direction as if she could tear the air into pieces and bludgeon him with it.

"You've rejected my love for the last time, Bee!" she declared. "Primus made us for each other! And I'll have your spark even if I need to pull it out your chamber!" Her frame shimmered, and before Bumblebee could even register confusion she'd vanished into a swarm of metallic wind arcing high and out of sight.

"I've heard of crazy exes, but that's something else altogether," Strongarm muttered by his side, watching the empty space where Stinger used to be as if she'd pop back into existence.

"She is _not_ an ex, I've never met her before in my life!" Bumblebee insisted, holding his aching forehelm against his hand as Fixit sheepishly trundled up to him. "Fixit, you sure you read through _all_ of her profile?"

The Minicon rubbed his drill against the back of his helm. "I... might have skimmed over some of her personality trays- _zzt_ -traits..." He held a datapad in his hand, and the display beamed up as his optics zipped across it. "Er, it says here... due to the effect of Shockwave's experiments... she's prone to form severe fixations on certain bots. They sometimes wear off after a few days, but in this case... there's no real telling what she'll do." Fixit handed the datapad up to Bumblebee so he could read it himself, wheels spinning nervously in the dirt.

"So what you're telling me... is not only do we have a bot who can disguise herself as anything on the planet, but she also has abandonment and attachment issues?" Bumblebee asked slowly, while Fixit fought the urge to not flee from his weary tone while he still could.

“W-Well, if it helps… the compound she's made of should be vulnerable to electricity," he pointed out, flashing a weak smile as if the entire problem was solved.

But Strongarm was thinking, chewing her bottom lip and creasing her eyeridges like she always did. She held out a hand towards the datapad in Bee's grip. "Sir, if I may..." He was already nodding as he handed it over to her. With quick digits she wiped the display clean and typed in whatever she was looking for. "I've been going over the profile of our prisoner... and I think we should pay him a visit." She held the screen up for Bee to see, and he was already on the move when he caught what she was pointing to. 

 

**xx**

 

Sideswipe was unfortunately the only one left to guard Circuitsplitter, and the two were servo wrestling when Bumblebee arrived. Even worse, Russell was the referee, and Sideswipe ended up winning. 

"BOOYAH!" The Autobot slammed Circuit's servo down on the tree stump and pumped his free one in the air, only releasing the grumbling mech's hand to give Russell a high-five with a digit. 

"Well, you cheated!" Circuit insisted, sulking too much to notice the grim Autobots approaching. "You probably get specialist servo wrestling training in the Autobots or somethin'!"

"I don't need training with guns like these, buddy!" Sideswipe flexing was more comical than threatening, considering how his servo mass was practically dwarfed by Strongarm's when he tried to get another high-five out of her. "Come on, Strongarm, don't leave me hanging," he whined, shaking his hand back and forth until she finally gave in, rolling her optics as she slapped it.

Circuitsplitter meanwhile was trying to get Russell on his side, almost snapping his backstrut from how much he had to bend it while leaning down. "Hey, tiny squishy thing, back me up here, that was totally unfair!"

Bumblebee roughly cleared his vocaliser before Russell could give an opinion, forcing himself on the prisoner's attention. "Circuitsplitter. I see you've sobered up by now."

The mech shrugged and kicked back against the flimsy fencing penning him in, peds propped up on the stump that saw his defeat at Sideswipe's still-gloating hands, which were busy scooping Russell up for a victory dance around the junkyard. "Nothin' like a pretty femme and her dumbaft boyfriend to chase the hangovers away." Circuit floated a digit lazily between both Bumblebee and Strongarm while the latter was spluttering protests as soon as she heard 'boyfriend'. "So which one's good cop and bad cop, then? I always get them mixed up."

"Just answer our questions," Bee sighed, holding his datapad in front of him. "You were an electronics expert before the war, right?"

Circuit squinted at the display, glazing over the unflattering account of his life with little interest before shrugging again. "Might've been. What's it to you?"

"Well, that's the only thing giving us second thoughts about sending you right back to a cell in Iacon," Strongarm informed him, placing herself in front of Bee and pulling the datapad away. "Because we happen to have an... electrical problem." 

Circuitsplitter furrowed his eyeridges, one of the shades over his optics slowly sliding up so he could squint skeptically at them both. For a nanoklick, apprehension seemed to flicker in that one optic before it was made blank. "So... this'd be like community service or somethin'?"

"Something like that," Bee answered.

"And what do I get in return?"

"We won't stop you from leaving Earth, despite all your outstanding warrants."

To Bee's surprise, Circuit snorted at the offer with a grin so lopsided it was almost falling off his face, both optics covered again. "What's makes you think I wanna leave?"

"It's not optional," Strongarm told him firmly, making him flinch away as she forced herself close to him. "You are taking up time that could be spent chasing down criminals that are actually dangerous, so the sooner you get out of our way the better."

Circuitsplitter seemed to freeze, looking at Strongarm like she'd turned into a rabid turbofox, before somehow regaining himself and waving her aside. "Alright, alright, I can take a hint. As long as I get enough high grade to last me, I'll be gone before you know it. Place looks like a snorefest, anyway." Then he pointed over Strongarm's shoulder, to where Russell was stumbling dizzily after an ill-advised spin on Sideswipe's shoulder. "Except from the kid, I like him. Kinda want to take one with me for the ride home."

"Absolutely not," was the dual consensus from both Bee and Strongarm.


	4. Chapter 4

"I have three requests," Circuitsplitter said once the stasis cuffs were finally off, counting off each one on a digit. "I want some high-grade, some boosters and some banging-aft music."

"No, no again, and only if you wear these," Bumblebee said, holding up a pair of headphones kindly donated/stolen from Sideswipe. Circuit lifted his shades just enough for his narrowed optics to show through as they peered at the thick buds, but he accepted them with a shrug.

"Fair enough."

And with that, Circuitsplitter was put to work near the jumbled scrap electronics corner of the yard, with Grimlock now in charge of keeping a close optic on him. That apparently translated to standing right over him with eyes pinned open, but apart from a few uneasy shudders Circuit didn't make much of his presence. It was Russell that he was interested in, the human only too happy to interrupt his tinkering and Circuit too grateful for anything to distract him on top of the obnoxiously loud beat leaking from the headphones draped around his neck. 

"So what's with the shades?" Russell asked, gesturing up at the black panels covering the mech's optics. He grinned as he pulled one of them up.

"You gotta wear them when your future's as bright as mine," he said, winking the revealed optic.

A few feet or so away the Autobots were still in audio range, and Strongarm almost broke her vocaliser from how loudly she groaned. "Dear Primus, he's like living proof of Cybertron going downhill."

Bumblebee was inclined to agree, but at least Circuit was getting on with work, like they all should've be doing. "So, assuming our new recruit actually lives up to the task, what are we thinking for actually capturing Stinger?"

As usual, Strongarm was quick with her suggestion, waving her servo like a student in class. "Our best bet might be luring her into a trap, where some kind of electric current can hit her and disable her moving particles. Then we could just walk up and put her in a pod."

“That sounds easy, so I'm going with that one,” Sideswipe added, also putting his hand up. It was exactly the plan Bumblebee was thinking of, but it depended on one glaring and essential detail, one that the others either hadn't noticed or were just trying to ignore.

"With me as bait, I'm assuming?"

From how quickly Strongarm and Sideswipe pulled their optics down, flinching from the fact, they'd already assumed it as well. "Well, you're the only thing guaranteed to draw her out..." Strongarm’s reasoning was a nervous mumble. Awkward nanoklicks ticked past, but it seemed no one had any better ideas. So all Bumblebee could do was sigh and accept a whole new responsibility as leader, summoning over Fixit while he lingered near their prisoner, as if he was about to offer Circuit help.

"Fixit, see if you can get some plans up for an electrical trap of some kind. The smaller, the better."  
"On it, sir,” Fixit said with a salute of his drill, but his other servo made anxious fists with his digits. “Though... can I make a suggestion?"

"Of course."

"It might help to distract Stinger at first, rather than directly attacking. If she thinks you genuinely want to talk with her, she'd be much easier to lead into the trap." It was an innocent enough suggestion, _too_ innocent for Bumblebee’s liking as he tried to picture how the ambush would play out.

"You want me to... _flirt_ with her?" he asked, rolling the word around like something sour on his glossa. 

"It would be very effective!” Fixit rushed out, though his vocaliser was static-frayed behind his apologetic grin and Sides and Strongarm didn't quite succeed in covering up giggles.

"Oh, I bet it would be,” Bee groaned, and Fixit took the cue to return to the familiar territory of the Alchemor's extensive database.

"Y’know, Bee, if you want some pointers for charming femmes, I can help,” Sideswipe offered with a nudge and wiggling eyeridges, though his expression fell when Strongarm managed to scoff and laugh at the same time.

“Sides, you couldn't charm a pleasure drone,” Strongarm said, again giving Bee something to agree with. 

“Oh yeah?!” Sideswipe whirled on her. “Well just you watch! I'm gonna charm your pants off! I mean… if you were wearing pants, I would!”

Times like this and most in between, with Strongarm already walking away and Sides trailing after her, Bumblebee wished they'd both just shut up and kiss already. 

But now he was alone, so he could seen just what kind of trouble their prisoner was getting Russell into. The human untangled a rainbow of wires at Circuit’s peds while the mech hummed a tune under his vents and focused on a cluttered motherboard in his hand.

"Can't stop, won't stop, Bee make the booty drop-"

"Not while I'm on duty, I don't,” Bumblebee sighed, making Circuit jump slightly and snap round to face him. “Did Fixit tell you what we're wanting?”

Readjusting his shades, Circuit picked up the datapad Fixit must have dropped off for him, skimming over it before letting it fall back down again. “Yep, I can work with this. More or less."

“Which means…?”

“It means just let me work my magic, boss,” Circuit said with a smirk that was supposed to be reassuring but failing utterly at it. 

“Well, let us know when it's finished,” Bee said with yet another sigh. “If it works and our ‘problem’ is dealt with, we’ll release your ship and you can go on your way.”

“Whatever, dude.” Circuit went back to soldering, somehow making sense of the mess of wires feeding out of the board he was working on. At least he acted like he knew what he was doing, and Russell seemed happy enough sorting out the junk for him. 

So everyone had something to keep them busy, except Sideswipe whose charming attempts ended up earning him a slap across the faceplate that was distant but louder than his screech. As if Bee wasn't stressed enough about being femme-bait, now he had to defuse Sides before he ended up wandering off in a sulk and getting captured by another loose Con. He left just as Strongarm arrived, so wreathed in irritation that even Grimlock backed away as she slammed her aft down on top of a tire stack, servos crossed tight over her chest. She ignored both Circuitsplitter’s and Russell's curious gazes.

“What does a girl like you see in a guy like him?” Circuit eventually asked, somehow not cowering the glare she shot at him.

“Look, I don't know where you got this idea from, but me and Sideswipe are _not_ a couple. And before you ask, no, I'm not interested in you either.”

If Circuit was offended by the assumption, he just shrugged it away. “Well, the guy’s obviously crazy about you.”

“Crazy _annoying,_ sure,” Strongarm scoffed, but even Russell had something to say.

“He's got a point, Strongarm. Human guys can be weird when they really like someone, so… maybe it applies to robot ones as well.” The human also shrugged, while Strongarm stared at them both with narrow, though secretly thoughtful optics. 

Then she was on her peds, insisting, “I'm not sitting here getting relationship advice from a human sparkling and an high-holic criminal!” with a digit thrown at both of them before she was marching away again.

"Hey, for your info, I’m a _high functioning_ high-holic!” Circuit called back in protest, but Strongarm was already out of range and something nervous glazed over the habitual lazy disinterest he usually carried. Something like withdrawal, and fear on top of it. He turned to Russell with that same look. “Do humans have high-grade, kid?”

Russell shook his head, trying not to notice how hollow the mech looked all of a sudden. “No, sorry.”  
“Ah, damn.” It was a whisper that didn't quite manage to stop Circuitsplitter’s digits shaking.

 

**xx**

 

It was evening when Sideswipe had calmed down, Strongarm had drawn herself out of her huff, Bumblebee had accepted his fate and Circuit finally unveiled his creation. Two makeshift generators flanked him, cables thick as a mech’s servo and snaking wires all over the ground in heaps around his peds, all leading to a switch in his digits. 

“So what is it?” Bee asked, while everyone else was trying to work it out for themselves.

"Well, on either side we have the anode and a cathode with the circuit breakers peeled off and replaced with the overchargers from those plasma engines over there-”

"In Neocybex, please,” Bee asked again, sighing this time. 

"Switch make big spark,” Circuit said with a frown, gesturing to the one in his hand.

"And what can we use the big spark for?" Strongarm asked, eyeing the whole set up with a hefty amount of skepticism. 

"Well, if you'll step back and let me demonstrate..." And the Autobots were only happy to give him a wide strip of space where, after cracking his digits and venting heavily, he started doing star jumps and push ups in.

“What _are_ you doing?” Bumblebee asked, wondering if Circuit had drank so much on the way over that he still had some dredges left over in his tanks.

“Raising my core frame temperature,” he answered casually.

“Why?”

“So I don't get burn marks when I do this.” With one swift flick, he turned the switch and erupted in a giant plume of electricity, lightning bolts arcing along his plating and filling his wide, uncovered optics with a terrifying white glare. His vocaliser was fried, overloading with gabbering glitches as his denta clattered together like his helm was being hammered. He was still twitching when he collapsed in the dirt, smoke trails from cooked systems wafting out his cracked armour seams.

Sideswipe was the first to recover from the less literal shock gripping everyone, helm clutched like a lifeline in his hands. “Oh, Primus, we killed him!” 

And Circuitsplitter was such an aft that he waited until everyone was desperately thinking of how to cover up a murder before snapping awake, leaping to his peds on crackling wings of electricity that swarmed all over his frame. 

"WOOOOOOOAH!” He cheered like an academy frat mech, optics still pure white and no less unnerving than before. To say he was still alive was an understatement, it was like the Allspark decided to rebirth him on the spot. “I'M INVINCIBLE, BABY!" He moved in fizzing blurrs all over the scrapyard, like a sparkling on red energon, and the only way to track him was by the scorched earth he left under his peds and how close his maniacal laughter sounded.

“He made _himself_ the electric trap.” Strongarm’s tone made it sound both obvious and unbelievable. 

“At least he’ll be fast enough to catch Stinger,” Sideswipe said shakily, still not quite recovering from his murder scare. “Only one thing left to do now. 

That thing being getting Stinger to show herself again. “Can't wait,” Bee groaned, not bothering to move aside as Circuit danced freely in between them all with prickling static shocks crawling under their armour.


	5. Chapter 5

Not for the first time in his life, Bumblebee's name was very fitting for the situation he was in. Or maybe not, considering he was like honey slathered out for a very aggressive bee to stick to. Even with the others watching him from the crest of a hill, far enough into the trees behind him that they wouldn't be seen, he felt stranded. The knowledge that somewhere in those trees was a electricity-high alcoholic criminal that was supposed to be his mission partner was almost as terrifying as thinking Stinger was nearby. 

And as for Stinger herself... well, if she'd made herself more obvious then Bumblebee wouldn't be as paranoid as he was just waiting for her to jump out and whisk him away. 

"I know you're around here somewhere, Stinger, come on out!" He actually didn't know if she was, but his challenge stretched out over enough distance that birds took flight and saturated the evening sky with dark wings. He was about to flash a desperate look back at the Autobot's lying in safety when somewhere over the lingering rustle of branches and leaves came a quiet mumble.

"...You're just gonna hit me again if I do."

It was definitely Stinger, yet also definitely _not_ her. Bumblebee remembered her as a hissing, feral thing that bit a chunk off every word as it came out her vocaliser. But what he heard was more like a broken prisoner, wavering with static and low enough that it was as if she was scared of hearing it. There were few explanations for how she could change so drastically since their last encounter, one of them being that it was a trap, but... she wasn't the type to try subterfuge. If she wanted to ambush Bee, she would have done it already.

With that thought precariously placed in his processor, Bee had to change tactics very quickly. "I won't, I promise. I just... wanna talk."

His own hesitation must have convinced her he was telling the truth, as a few moments later there was a louder shuffle of undergrowth parting in front of shadow-dappled, fuzzy clouds of pink armour. Only her head was fully exposed, and it had narrow optics above an unreadable battlemask. Bumblebee held his servos out towards her, palms open and facing upwards. 

"See, I don't have any weapons out. I won't hurt you if you don't hurt me."

Stinger blinked and then squinted harder at him, taking just one step out of her cover even as parts of her frame glitched in and out of perception. "I don't... I don't want to hurt you," she said, barely above a whisper that the gentle wind managed to carry to Bumblebee. It might have relieved him if it didn't confuse him first.

"Then why did you attack me earlier?" he asked, since an attack was all he could really classify such intense hugging as. 

But Stinger looked even more confused than he felt. "I didn't..." She shook her helm, letting it hang low off her neck cables. "I... I just... want a friend. Everytime I wake up I have no idea where I am, and... everything hurts. I thought... that you would be friendly. You looked friendly. But then I saw you were an Autobot, and... I knew you'd beat me up like all the other ones." She took inching steps forwards as the muted confession trickled out, and now the tall grass wasn't shielding her Bee could see how slumped and tired her frame looked. She couldn't have lunged for him even if she was planning to, unless that was just part of the act. But the part of Bee's spark that refused to be cynical doubted it. If her processor was in as many pieces as Fixit has said, then it was little wonder she was so suddenly scared. He felt the same when he first landed on Earth so long ago, even with a Prime backing him up.

"I'm not that kind of Autobot," he said softly, no longer convinced he was talking to a dangerous Decepticon escapee, or even someone dangerous at all. Anyone that was so nervous to approach him again wasn't someone to be scared of, even with those red optics appraising him so carefully. 

"...What other kind of Autobot is there?" she asked after a long moment full of nothing but the whistle of the evening wind. 

"The kind that doesn't act like there's still a war on between us and Decepticons," Bee answered. Because it was only likely this femme didn't even know the war was over, or that Cybertron was there for her to return to. "Look, I'm... sorry you ended up like this. As some kind of experiment by Megatron. But he isn't around anymore. You don't need to fight anyone cause there's nothing to fight for. If your intentions are peaceful… I wanna help you. If you'll let me." He only had one servo stretched out now, glowing a gentle welcome to Stinger as she struggled to close the distance left between them. His hand was the anchor between them, the focus of her skeptical stare, and when she was close enough to touch it she looked up to see him smiling at her, the last thing she needed to convince her... 

And then Circuitsplitter had to ruin it by finally showing up and actually doing as he was told for once. 

"EAT SPARKPLUG, DEMON GLITCH!" The previously-empty air behind Stinger was a line of scorched forestry marking Circuit’s path; humming with the overload of energy still fizzling off the mech as he clamped the femme's shoulders, forcing the sparks to zap and crackle all over her frame even as she fell limp on the dirt, locked into solidity by her own sizzling pain.

"Someone call Inferno, cause ya'll just got _buuuuuurned_ ," Circuit cheered, pointing down at Stinger and completely ignoring Bee's outraged scowl as he did some kind of victory dance around the fallen femme. 

"Circuit!" Bumblebee couldn't even berate him when he'd just followed the original plan, and not when Stinger's rapidly fading optics were sending him down an achingly long guilt trip.

"You... you were... tricking me?" Her vocaliser wasn't much better than his own was after Tyger Pax, choked with static and fringed with painful glitches. 

"I'm sorry, Stinger. But you didn't give us much of a choice." He knelt down as he said it, wanting to reach for Stinger's faceplate before it could warp even more with agony and betrayal. But just being near her made his EM field sputter and his protoform prickle uncomfortably with the charge running all through her systems. If Stinger wanted to say anything else to him, it was lost in a whimper as her optics died and stasis finally put her out of her jolting misery. 

Blind to the sorrow soaking Bumblebee's spark, Circuitsplitter was still jumping back and forth on his peds when he creased his olfactories and asked, "Anyone else smell burning?" 

That was his last question, before he too collapsed quite suddenly into a twitching stasis no-one was intending to wake him from, and not just because his body was literally swarming with left over currents.

 

**xx**

 

"I'm telling you, she's not an enemy!" Bumblebee insisted for the third time, starting to wonder if all the fiddling with electricity wasn't making his teammates short circuit. "You didn't hear what she said to me, she's not here to cause trouble! She's just lonely... she needs help, not a stasis pod."

Strongarm was the only one who at least tried to cover up her severe doubt, even if it was only because she felt like she had to. "Bumblebee, sir, with all due respect, it's just hard for us to believe that a bot as... unstable as her should be allowed to run free, even if she doesn't have bad intentions. What if she gets attached to someone again, or the other Decepticons manage to manipulate her?”

“What if she falls in love _with_ a Decepticon?” Sideswipe added, with wide optics only getting bigger as a hundred other doomsday scenarios descended upon him. “Oh Primus, and then they have little Decepticon kids and they're running around making a mess everywhere and-!”

He was rambling, so Bee knew it was safe to interrupt while Sides worried himself to an early meeting with Primus. “Look, I don't feel right locking her up in a pod, but if I'm the only one comfortable with her being out then I see no other choice.” And as expected, no one raised a servo to change their mind on the matter.

“At least we can keep an optic on her this way,” Strongarm pointed out, putting on her best smile, but Bumblebee couldn't return it. His faceplate was forced blank as he trudged off to the pod storage corner, where Stinger was only temporarily trapped for now. But one button press would seal her pod airtight for as long as they needed, which meant for as long as they were stuck on Earth with hordes of bots who actually deserved to be cramped in there instead of her.

Along the way, he only took solace in letting himself get distracted by overhearing Denny still trying to piece together everything that happened that day. "So... I spent five hundred dollars on a Decepticon?"

"A pink Decepticon,” Sideswipe reminded him, and before Denny could launch into another colour theory rant Circuitsplitter, up and running as of five klicks ago, shoved himself in front of Sides.

"Yo, Denny, I might not be the right colour, but..." His T Cog whirred, and when his plating settled into its new form he looked almost exactly like a black and white Bumblebee, with his hood forming a flap of fabric on his trunk. "I think I make a pretty good replacement."

Bumblebee couldn't help smiling like Denny, wondering when Circuit had managed to scan his alt mode when he wasn’t looking. Strongarm wasn't nearly as accommodating.

"Oh, no no no, you are _not_ staying here! We needed you for one job, and now it's time for you to leave!"

Sideswipe was the only one coming to his defence. “Aw, Strongarm, we can't just kick him out!” 

“And we can't just have a reckless criminal in our team! One is bad enough!”

“Hey!” Grimlock was stamping up to speak his share, but his snarls died down as his slow processor finally kicked into action. “I mean, that’s true, but…”

So with Circuitsplitter’s existence serving as the perfect distraction, Bee took his chance to be a stubborn aft instead of a responsibile leader. With the shadow of the pods and the night hiding him, he let his digits find the release switch for Stinger's by themselves. She took longer than usual to wake up, sparks still arcing over her stiff frame, but when the light bled back into her optics it was harsh and burning when it landed on him, even when he stepped aside and stretched a servo out towards her freedom. 

"Go on,” he said. “Before anyone sees you." 

Stinger blinked, and each time the furious suspicion in her optics faded just a little more. "...Why?"

"Cause if I'd known you weren't trying to hurt me, I wouldn't have tricked you like that,” he replied, the raw honesty making his voice heavy. “There are a lot worse bots than you out there. Just... promise me you won't cause any trouble, alright? Stay low, try and blend in. And if you see a mech called Steeljaw, give him a good kick in the codpiece."

Stinger angled her helm left and right, watching for each tiny step she dared to take out of the safety of her pod. When she was in line with Bee and no one had tried tackling her yet, the half of her faceplate he could see did something strange, softening in the warm light of her optics just before she launched herself on Bumblebee. The embrace wasn't as crushing as the last one, not possessive at all. It was full of relief and careful hope, and he could feel her spark soaring from her chamber.

"Thank you, Bee,” she said quietly, right into his audio so he could hear how happy she was as he returned the hug.

"Don't mention it." He was as reluctant to let her go as she was to leave, but soon his servos loosened and she pulled away, running for the uncertain darkness ahead away from the scrapyard. Her optics were the only light as she looked back at him, and he thought he saw her wave just before she turned again and plunged out of sight. 

"If only the other Cons were that easy to handle..." Bumblebee found it hard to get the smile off his face, knowing he at least did one good thing before the day ended. So he just kept his helm low as he trudged back to his teammates, also knowing she'd be long gone by the time anyone noticed her pod was sealed but empty.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And this hella stupid fic is finally done, all because I wanted Stingerbee and I happened to have an obnoxious OC lying around doing nothing. I might use Circuitsplitter in some other oneshots, but it's unlikely since OC-fics hardly ever end up good /pffff


End file.
